One of the aims with future E-UTRA (Advanced LTE) and 5G networks is to support Vehicle-to-X (V2X) communication. V2X communication is the passing of information from a vehicle to any entity that may affect the vehicle, and vice versa. This information exchange can be used for a host of safety, mobility and environmental applications to include driver assistance and vehicle safety, speed adaptation and warning, emergency response, safety, traveler information, navigation, traffic operations and demand management, personal navigation, commercial fleet planning and payment transactions. There may be significant societal benefit and commercial value to delivering safety, mobility and convenience applications that rely on V2X.
Basic entities within a V2X communication system are the vehicles (V) and its connectivity to any other Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) station. Therefore, V2X communication systems include transceivers, in the form of eNodeBs (eNBs) or user equipment (UEs) located on vehicles, mounted on the roadside infrastructure, in aftermarket devices, or within handheld devices of pedestrians or other vulnerable road users. V2X communication may include, but not exclusively, Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication, Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communication, and Vehicle to Pedestrian/Portable Device (V2P) communication.
Recent documents published by the 3GPP include provisions for the implementation of V2X. However, much of the implementation detail is still marked as “for future study”. The documentation does, however, include a number of aims relating to the safety of road users. These include reducing the number of fatalities caused by vehicles hitting pedestrians to a “zero-level”. In order to achieve this goal several smaller requirements have to be satisfied. One such requirement is the precise and accurate positioning of pedestrians (relative to the vehicles), ideally with a granularity down to 20 cm.